Sharpening his attack on the UPA government, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said it has disappointed people as a result of scams, corruption and rising prices and taunted it for not realising that the “Congress ship is sinking.”

The BJP strongman also expressed confidence that the saffron party will retain power and emerge triumphant in the Assembly elections in Gujarat due in the end of the year.

The Chief Minister’s remarks in his address to party members on the concluding session of two-day BJP state executive meeting here came even as posters supporting arch rival Sanjay Joshi, who was forced to make an exit from BJP, and apparently targeting Modi appeared around the meeting venue.

As the poster war continued, some of the dissident workers also protested wearing masks of Joshi and carrying placards, at about 200 metres from the venue, and they were detained by the police.

“This Congress-led UPA government has disappointed people of the country by series of scams and failure of checking corruption and price hike,” Modi said.

Modi also accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of misguiding people of the country by claiming to have achieved 7 per cent GDP growth, which has come down to 5 per cent this quarter.

The government in Delhi does not know that there was a “hole in the ship”, he said, adding the “Congress ship is sinking” as it has hurt and miscalculated human power.

“There is no chance for Congress to survive,” Modi said and asked how the party which is struggling can give stability to the nation.

“If you cannot bring the prices down, at least bring it to that level where our Atal Behari Vajpayee (former prime minister) left it,” he added.

“Assembly elections are likely to be held in Gujarat by year end and people of the state have to decide to choose between BJP’s politics of development and Congress’s caste-based politics,” Modi said.

“We have won in 2002, 2007 and in 2012 Assembly elections, the condition is more favourable for BJP compared to 2002 and 2007 as people of the country are disappointed with Congress rule at the Centre,” Modi said.

Modi said there were a couple of reasons for the failure of the UPA government. As the GDP reduced and inflation increased, the government was not concerned about it, and secondly, the Indian rupee was going down day by day, he added.

“Our Indian rupee is going down and down against dollar and Indian reputation has gone down in international market,” Modi said, adding that “people of the country want to know why Indian rupee has became weak”.

He claimed that BJP is the only party in the country which believes in peace, ‘sadbhavna’ and unity and practices politics of development and not caste-based politics.

Modi’s remarks came amid large scale dissidents and internal bickering in the state BJP on the issue of exit of Joshi from the party and revolt by former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel and his supporters.

The state executive meeting was held in Rajkot, home town of Keshubhai, to finalise BJP’s poll strategy for the state Assembly elections which the party likes to term as ‘Mission 2012’.

On the second day of the meeting, posters supporting Joshi and apparently targeting Modi had appeared around the meeting venue. Some of the dissident workers also protested wearing masks of Joshi and carrying placards, at about 200 metres from the venue, and they were detained by the police.